


Aftermath

by Nautilusopus



Series: FFVII Halloween Week 2019 [5]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Disasters, Gen, I don't know how to tag this, Rebuilding, crisis core and dirge still not canon, no betas here we die like men, postgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 09:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21241583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: Meteor has only just fallen. There's much work to be done once the dust settles.(Written for FFVII Halloween Week: Day 5 - Death and the Dead)





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Well this turned out kinda grim. Whoops.

The papers flutter and snap against the wooden board they're nailed to like frightened birds, even as Cloud pins yet another one to the sliver of free space he can find. Barret is there waiting behind him, soaking in all the photos as though trying to memorise every face there, in the vain hope that perhaps maybe he'll stumble across one of them and reunite even a single family.

The bulletin is almost an entire block long, and it's still packed to the brim with missing persons. The "last seen" varies from poster to poster: Sector 4 Markov District, Sector 8 slums, Shinra Tower...

Behind them, all of these places dominate the skyline in a massive pile of still-cooling rubble.

Cloud wishes he had a picture of Aeris. Wishes he could pin a post of his own here, so someone could call him a few days later with a sighting. Wishes he could still have the same hope these people do, even though in all likelihood every last one of these people are just as dead as she is.

And still, he'd put up a poster if he could.

Instead he leaves and follows Barret back to the refugee camp set up along Midgar's edge. They've been making rounds like this all day -- Cloud might not be the best at healing, but he has more than enough magical energy to spare, and both he and Barret have some semblance of EMT training from their time on the road. Not nearly enough, not what these people needed, but it was better than nothing. In the days after Meteorfall what hospitals that are still standing are packed full and much too far away to be of any use to those pulled out of the rubble after the fact.

Cloud slips into a tent he hasn't visited yet and finds an older man there, half-awake from the morphine he's being administered. He makes an effort to sit up when he sees Cloud enter, and Cloud quickly kneels next to him instead, hoping he hasn't damaged anything in the attempt.

"I'm here to help," says Cloud, flashing the makeshift badge he's been given (little more than an old Shinra ID badge scribbled over in permanent marker) identifying himself as a relief volunteer. "Do you think there's anything I could try to heal?"

"My granddaughter," he rasps immediately. "She -- downtown in Sector 2. Please. They found me, they didn't find her, please, you have to --"

"What's her name?" says Cloud as he begins to channel his magic into the battered body in front of him, as though every single survivor hasn't asked him something like this.

"Piper," says the man. "I'm Murphy. She's only ten, please, you have to find her --"

"I will," says Cloud, and he means it. Even if he doesn't say out loud _why_. "Just tell me where to look."

And so he finds himself venturing out into the ruins again. Avalanche -- specifically, himself, Yuffie, and Tifa -- are the ones that wind up doing this sort of thing, with himself in charge of much of he heavy lifting. Metaphorically for the most part, since the three of them are light and athletic and reasonably good climbers, and literally in his case -- not many other people left alive that were capable of lifting entire collapsed houses off of civilians.

The sprawling megalopolis that used to be Midgar still smokes, and it's only his enhanced sense of smell that allows him to find anyone without days of searching involved. Murphy had given him a rough address, which helps quite a bit.

But there's also nothing more distinct than the smell of a corpse.

It's been an entire week of this. Of searching for the dead. Fishing bodies from rubble. The child he holds is small and pale, and he doesn't even gag when he lifts her into his arms and her foot drops clean off, only held on by a shred of rotting sinew to begin with. He's seen worse than this _today_.

He carries back the body without another word. He's too much of a coward to approach the board and remove any of the photos himself. He remains so, even as the weeks turn into months, and all he can do for the photos is repin them himself when the wind inevitably begins to blow them away.


End file.
